Impurity effect on the charge ordered state in manganites—in case of Sc doped manganites Original Research Article

We investigated an influence of substituting Sc for Mn sites on the charge and orbital ordered (CO/OO) state in Nd0.5Ca0.5MnO3. In the 3% Sc-doped sample, it is found that a magnetic susceptibility curve shows an anomalous cusp around 60 K on cooling. Electron diffraction measurement revealed that an incommensurate (IC) to commensurate (C) structural phase transition takes place around 60 K on cooling and it has a large thermal hysteresis. Furthermore, real space image in the IC phase by electron microscopy shows the presence of the discommensurastions with a phase slip of π.